Sheogorath's Chosen
by Theoldaccountidontuse
Summary: Conrad Munro and Filthy Larry are on the run for a crime they did not commit... and quite a few more that they DID commit. The chapters get longer as the story goes on, don't worry.
1. The Trouble With Sundays and Tuesdays

Beyond the reach of mortal man, in a strange dimension of madness and twisted creatures, the God of Madness swung His hand down, lightning crackling around it, and blasted a small patch of table to dust. Haskill stood up shakily, ready to duck at the next sign of smiting.

"Surely, Master, you can think of a better use for Your godly and majestic powers than blasting a _board_ game to pieces?" he asked wearily. Sheogorath eyed the smoking hole in the table suspiciously.

"I don't like it," He said. "The hotel on _your _street is worth more than the house on _my_ street. Why does a hotel cost more than a house?"

"Truly it is a mystery of the universe, Sire."

Sheogorath was not put off that easily. "I didn't really want to stay at your hotel anyway. It was probably stinky and unclean in the first place. It was that stupid dice again. They always force Me to stay where I don't want to stay."

Haskill did not ever lose his temper. You did not get far in the realm of madness by losing your temper. Instead, he asked politely; "Well, Sire, what else is there to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon?"

Sheogorath raised a hand. The rain outside stopped, and the sun suddenly shone. Haskill looked outside approvingly.

"Well done, Sire! But it is still a Sunday afternoon, and-"

"Not anymore," replied Sheogorath. Outside, people begun to go to work as they would on a Tuesday afternoon. Haskill was worried. Sheogorath was getting bored, and bored Gods tended to have one main way of entertaining themselves; smiting unfortunate mortals. But Sheogorath had something else on His mind.

"What are the other Gods up to?" he asked. "Haven't seen Hircine in a while, now," and with that, he lit a small portal in the air, and looked into it thoughfully.


	2. An Embuggerance

Even as I walked into the cells of Castle Bravil, accompanied by a stern-faced guard, I recognised him. Puffy, scarred face, small bloodshot eyes. Yep, that was Sergeant, alright.

No-one knew why he was called Sergeant. He had served in many regiments across Nurn, had taken part in large amounts of the most famous battles in history, was rumoured to have stolen an Elder Scroll for money, and had battled with Kzzzgrd, a high ranking dremora general , and personal bodyguard to Mehrunes Dagon himself.

None of this altered the fact that Kzzzgrd was, in comparison to the gruesome, twisted evil that was Sergeant, a misunderstood young rascal who went around selling money which turned out to be useless paper after usage.

This was the part of the job I hated. Dealing with hardened criminals was one thing. Dealing with a man who had once rammed a toothbrush through a close friends jaw and slammed the bristles into his brain was another.

"Mr. Batcheler, I presume?" I asked tentatively.

"Tha's Thergeant to ya, detective," he replied in a strangely garbled voice. As he opened his mouth I got a quick glimpse of his tongue, a lump of gristle with a split down the middle. I shuddered. I hadn't heard the story behind that one, but could imagine one for myself all too easily.

"How- how'd you know I'm a detective?"  
"You're comin' down 'ere to talk wi' me. Tha' thayth to me, either you're a pthyciatritht fra' t' Mageth Guil', or you're thummin' who'th been 'ired to fin' out where I thtuck t' Elder Thcroll."  
It took me a few seconds to try and work out what he had just said. 'Psychiatrist from the Mages Guild' was giving me some problems.

"Well, Sergeant, you're right in some respects. I am being hired by the Council, and I do want to know where you put the Elder Scroll you stole. If you do that, a bail could be arranged. You could be terrorising- sorry, I meant walking the streets again by tomorrow!"  
Sergeant appeared to give this some thought. "And wha' happenth if I thay 'no', Mithter Detective?"

"Then you rot, Mr. Sergeant.

"I ain' thayin' nothin' wi' tha' copper in 'ere."

I nodded to the guard, and he walked up back to his desk upstairs. I knew this would be okay, the guard was more there for my protection than the prisoners'.

"Then… alrigh', detective, wha' if I told ya tha' ou' t' back o' thi' Cathtle, in t' firtht buth to t' righ' o' t' barrackth… well, there _coul'_ be anything thitting in thothe butheth…"  
"Your co-operation is noteworthy, Sergeant."  
"Thut up."  
"Righto."

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Outside, I wiped the sweat from my face, glad to have left that dark, claustrophobic dungeon. The man was nuts. However, he had given very good instructions. First bush to the right of the barracks…

The bush in question turned out to be a nice, large one with plenty of thorns. Bloody typical, said my brain to the rest of me.

"Oww… ow. Ow! Hooray-ow!"

The last hooray was uttered shortly after my bleeding hand closed on a hard, glass bottle. I pulled it out triumphantly, holding above my head for all to see. The cork was popped off, and the piece of paper inside unfolded in my hand.

This was it. In my hand, I held a fragment of the universe itself. A terrible item made by ancients who preceded even the Gods Themselves…

There seemed to be some commotion at the Castle. Guards were running around, grabbing weapons and shouting orders. But all this was lost on me as I looked at the scroll again. It was said a man could tell the future simply by gazing into its papery depths… but the powers would cause that man to be struck blind…

Tentatively, slowly, I unfolded the paper.

A guard screamed something at me, furiously.

Quivering with excitement, I let my eyes trail across the paper. Then I did a double-take. Then I read it again.

"Huh?"

The paper read as follows;

_To whoever has tried to trick Sergeant into giving back the Scroll that is his only salvation, please be aware that__ he is much, much more intelligent and cunning than you think._

My face didn't even get to change expression as the guards hit me.


	3. The Orb

"This is grim, Haskill. Very grim indeed," said Lord Sheogorath as He stroked His beard. Haskill knew that the reason He did that was because He had read somewhere that intelligent people stroke their beards when they were perplexed, and had said "If a Daedric Lord can't be intelligent and perplexed at the same time, then who can? It's practically zen to multitask that well!"

Haskill had his own personal opinions on his Master's intelligence. He never expressed them.

"Yes, master."

"If Hircine got his hands on an Elder Scroll…"

"Yes, my Lord, he would have unfathomable power at his disposal."

"Hmm… is there any way we can get send in Daedra to-"

"No, my Lord. Remember Martin Septim?"  
"Damn, damn, damn… I mean really, those barriers are more a kind of guideline… may as well put a line on the floor and say; 'this is my half, this is your half.'."

"Well put, Sire, but can you think what would happen if any of the less… desirable of the Daedric Princes found that out?"  
"Well… damn. Haskill, have you still got that Orb?"

The word was spoken normally, but a certain power was carried with it. When He said the word Orb, you knew that this was a time that even Sheogorath would act seriously for a while.

"Ye-es, Sire, but… well… you know Jyggalag… it would be like him to put a lovely little curse on it that makes… well, you know."

"Yes, Haskill I know," said Sheogorath. "You mean you could come out with your lungs wrapped around your face, or your intestines tied around your throat and strangling you or your OWN PELVIS SHARPENED TO A POINT AND USED AS A---"

"Um… Sir?"

"MASSIVE- oh, sorry about that. I guess it's just the evil overlord in me."  
"… Quite, sir."

"Oh well, I guess it's just a risk I have to take."

"Very noble of you, Sire."

"I try, Haskill. Now go fetch the orb."  
"But, Sire, I thought-"

"Now, Haskill!"


	4. Prison Break, Sergeant Style

The most dangerous place in the world for an innocent man to be is behind the iron bars of a cell. Real, hardened criminals tend to take exception to your presence. Fortunately, the guards were not complete sociopaths, and had put me in a cell opposite Sergeant, rather than in with him.

"You lying son of a bitch!" I shouted across at him. He smiled, a motion which had an interesting effect on his scars.

"Ya rea' my note before they arrethte' ya, I prethume?"  
"How the hell did you-"

"Popped i' in ya pocke' when ya were thayin' ya goo'byes to t' copper."  
I had to admire his cunning. And I knew something else about my problems. _He_ was getting out tomorrow, as he apparently was mistaken as the criminal. No doubt he would get a large compensation from his trouble. His intelligence annoyed me. After all, why break out of jail and live the rest of your life as a fugitive, when you can lay a trap and not only get your freedom, but a nice pension and a potentially fatal enemy trying to get you back _into_ jail thrown into the can. I, on the other hand, had a rather long stay 'at the emperor's pleasure', and since the emperor had recently sacrificed himself to save Tamriel, he was very unlikely to pleased in the short term.

It had to be said though, there seemed to be some kind of a problem with Sergeant right then. He kept putting a hand to his head, holding it as if in pain. The guard had noticed it too. He walked over to the cell, a look of concern on his usually stern and disciplined face. He knew not to normally trust prisoners, but a prisoner on his last day in clink… "Are you alright?" he asked, and moved closer to the bars.

In one sweeping movement, Sergeant had the man up against the bars. The spoon given to prisoners was made of wood, so it couldn't be sharpened and used as a weapon, and even then the wood was so soggy it was practically sponge. Nevertheless, when Sergeant rammed it through the guards open mouth and down his throat, it still fulfilled its full potential as a killing device. The guard fell to the floor, hands at his throat, gasping for breath, and so it was easy for Sergeant to reach through his bars and grab the set of keys jangling on his belt. On his belt! I thought dismally. Only the most gullible of guards war their keys in big jangling sets on their belts.

The correct key was slammed into place, turned, and Sergeant was free. He looked at my cell briefly before leaving, a few seconds of pure terror where I thought my cell would be unlocked and my life over.

Then he grabbed his head again, and stumbled up the stairs.

And the dungeon was silent again, aside from the choking noises of the guard on the floor.

"Quick!" I shouted to him. "Come here!"  
He stopped coughing. To anyone knowledgeable about such matters, this meant that his airway was completely blocked and there was no way for him to make noise. I grabbed at him through the bars, and caught him by a shoulder.

Private Detectives are not, in Tamriel, a particularly popular form of trade. Mages, warriors, thieves and assassins were all far more common. And so it is that there is no real training to _be _an investigator. So long as you can put clues together, and could climb well enough to get the occasional cat down from a tree, you'd be fine. However, during my youth I had been fortunate enough to be trained by the famous detective Joshua Johnson, whose training had included poisons, recognising the affects of different weapons on people (fairly basic, if they're mangled beyond recognition, it was an axe, anything else was 'probably a sword'), and of course, first aid.

The guard had reason to be thankful of this, because it meant that the little-known 'Heinrich Maneuver' could be employed to remove the remains of the spoon from the unfortunate man's throat, and save his life.

What was less fortunate was the Guard Captain running down the steps as I thumped my fists into the man's chest.


	5. The 69th Regiment, Not Just a Rude Joke

Beyond the reach of mortal man, in a strange realm, the Lord of All That is Mad sat still on His throne, staring into a shimmering patch in the air. He stood, punching the air triumphantly.

"Yes! Woohoo! Haskill, come have a geeze at this!"

Haskill sighed. Things had not been the same around the castle since Sheogorath had discovered how to scry widescreen style.  
"Yes, Sire." Haskill replied.

Haskill sat down on Sheogorath's throne, which extended to support two people. Inwardly, Haskill groaned. A fold-out couch-throne? Guiltily, Haskill realised he was almost looking forward to Jyggalag's upcoming invasion. Sheogorath was beginning to lose it, which was hard to achieve when you are already the God of Madness. He put such thoughts aside and concentrated on the wide-screen scrying patch.

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Outside Castle Bravil, seven guards sat astride their horses. Night had fallen, and still that wretched detective hadn't shown his face yet. The guard captain in particular was falling victim to the lesser-known Angel of Boredom.

"Does anyone here have the time?" he asked politely.

"No."

"Nope."

"Not me."  
"Drat." They sat in silence for a few minutes. The captain fidgeted on his horse. Finally, he snapped.

"Alright, that does it. Private Larson, you head inside find out whether anything's gone wrong."  
"Uh… sure thing Captain K.."  
"Look, I like to run a reasonably 'light discipline' battalion, but I object to being called 'Captain K.'. It's Captain Kirkderrick, thank you Larry."

"Yessir!"  
"Good."  
"Oh, and by the way… it's Private Larson to you, Cap."

The other guards watched as Larry dismounted from his horse and ran inside, hand on sword. One of them couldn't help but raise the question.

"Captain Kirkderrick, why do you put up with Private Larson's lip? You could fire him in a second."  
Captain J. T. Kirkderrick of the 69th Battalion shook his head. "Ah, corporal, you have yet to understand tactics. Private Larson is what we like to call in military terms an 'artillery unit'."  
"Uh… do you mean a 'tank', sir?"  
"Yes, that's what I said, corporal. His job is to run into situations like this, and check for traps, as he is strong enough to withstand most attacks."

Corporal Calcium (when he decided to become a guard, he heard that they were 'The backbone of Imperial culture' and had changed his name accordingly) sighed to himself. Captain John-Thomas Kirkderrick was one of the 'new age' officers. There had been a time once when officers were promoted simply for surviving long enough for anyone to notice the same name popping on battleground rosters. Now, they were promoted on their general runtiness, their scores in Social Studies tests, and on the size and spherical properties of their Adam's Apples.

"Of course, Sir."  
There appeared to be quite a commotion coming from inside the Castle. Swords clashed, and a loud scream echoed out through the courtyard. With a sound of smashing glass and iron a soldier came flying through the window, a sword through his stomach, and a heavily-armoured man grabbing him by the waist. They plummeted the two stories to the ground, and the heavily-armoured man landed… on top. He was so heavily armoured that top and bottom took on a new meaning, though. The soldier on the bottom seemed quite a bit flatter than previously.

Sergeant pulled his sword out of the man's chest, raised it above his head in both hands, and ran at the guards.

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Corporal Calcium wasn't exactly sure how to handle the situation. The other four soldiers were both Privates, and Captain Kirkderrick's horse had reared, giving him the excuse to fall off and curl up in a ball on the ground, effectively leaving Calcium as the commanding officer. The man had hit with all the force of a torpedo, leaving the soldiers struggling to keep their horses under control, let alone actually engaging the sociopath in combat. With a roar which came from the lungs, burned the throat, and didn't bother the tongue on its way past, the killer had poor Private Gallenus by the throat, which was fairly violent because the rest of Private Gallenus was now lying on the ground a few steps away. The man grabbed the horses reins, pulled himself up clumsily (he had planned to leap gracefully onto its back, but that was rather hard in that much armour) and rode of into the night.

Corporal Calcium let out a roar every bit as terrifying as Sergeant's had been, and kicked his horse furiously, pounding down the road on Sergeant's trail. The other guards followed, with many a "Hah!" and "Fiend! Face your peril!"

There was a few seconds silence, and then Captain J. T. Kirkderrick of the 69th division cautiously uncurled himself, stepped over the body of the now dismembered Private, clambered onto his horse, kicked it in the side, fell off, and then, on his second try, clattered off down the road at top speed.


	6. The Interrogation

"Tryin' to _save_ 'im?" said the guard captain incredulously. "Well tha' would explain tha', then, wouldn' it?"  
"Look, that was the Heimlich Maneuver! _Everyone_ knows that you use it to save choking people!" But in my heart I knew there was no use. This was Captain Samuel "the Wild" Pomeroy, a guard known for his 'connect the dots' mentality. You had a criminal, you had a crime, if you drew a line between them then the crime was solved. He didn't have any time for silly words like 'citizens' rights' or 'innocent until proven guilty'. He had become a guard because it had a good dental plan and you got to boss people around with the reassurance that there were a large number of people who would kill them if they didn't want to be bossed.

"Everyone knows it, then? Oh really? _I_ didn' know it, did I?"  
"No. You didn't. Listen, I know that you don't believe me, but just hear me out; I'm a detective, and I'm here to find who stole the Elder Scroll from the Imperial city-"

"We don' need a bleedin' detective! We know what happened! Yew was found with Mr. Batchelor's thieved Scroll, yew was! Tha' makes yew an accessory to the fact, as well as an assaultis'!"

"Accessory to what fact?"  
"Um… the fact tha' yew did it, yew bastard!"  
"Look, there are seven guards outside, _seven_ guards! They're my escort from the Imperial City, they'll vouch for me!"  
A look of panic crossed Captain Samuel's face. Harassing some random citizen from the Big City was one thing, harassing someone important enough to merit an _escort_ was quite another. I noticed the look, and allowed one of glee to cross my own face.

"Yep, that's right, you're really in the crap now, aren'tcha?!"  
"Um, erm, um, I'll, um, just be back in a second…"  
His heavy boots clanged up the stairs. I sat back and relaxed. So what if I had been captured? The escort would have me out in a jiffy, and even if they didn't, it would be only two, maybe three days work to find out who I was and for these idiots to send straight back home. I could find a way to enact revenge later.

The clanging noise filled the dungeon again as the captain ran back down the stairs. He hit the bottom at full run and knelt over, huffing and puffing.

"Righ'!" he shouted between pants for breath. "Yew, my young rapscallion, 'ad better pull yore pants down and 'ave a good look at yore own arse, me lad, because it'll be the las' sight of the moon yew'll ge' in a long, long time, or my name isn' Samuel the Wild!"

"What?"  
"Yeah, yew though' you was _so _clever, sending swee' ole gullible Cap'n Samuel down to the courtyard to look for an escor'… yore gonna be down 'ere a while, me lad…"  
"What? Well… go ask that guard I saved then, he'll tell you that if it wasn't for me…"  
"Gone home already. The Mages Guild is trying to get the remnants of spoon out of his throat."  
"Oh, _come on_! There was an escort, there must've been! Captain Kirkderrick, Corporal Calcium, Private Larson?"  
"Nope. Only one out there 'ad their voicebox ripped ou' and… well, I leave you the details. And tha' coul' 'ave been _anyone._ No guarantee tha' he was yore escor' in _any _way."

"Oh. Bugger."  
"Yep. Yore in 'ere for a few nights, tha's for sure. And I'm gonna make sure yore stew gets freshly gobbed in ev'ry night, jus' for tha' escor' crack."

"Oh. Well, good to know I'm appreciated."


	7. The Chosen One, But Not That One

The lone wolf prowled up the side of the hill, slowly, taking its time, its powerful legs revealing the sheer running force it could achieve if needed. It was the middle of the night, a full moon, and it raised its head to howl, as was expected of it by narration everywhere.

There was the sound of crashing branches and trees, and something massive moving towards it, the wolf's fur prickled and it bared its teeth, growling.

The forested hilltop was silent again, nothing but the sound of the wind breaking the impenetrable noiselessness. The wolf eased slightly, ears still prickling.

BANG!!! The metal fist collided with the side of its head, powerfully enough to take the wolf off its feet and into a tree. Then the massive metal man charged at it, unarmed, but all the more dangerous for that, and the wolf's life was over.

Sort of.

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Deep in the woods south of the Imperial City, there rests a small shrine, known only to the most loyal of Hircine's Hunters. Upon the stony platform there stands a terrible visage, a Man with the head of a deer, and the body of a man, a hunting wolf by His side. All is quiet in the dark woods, although in the white moonlight, one could almost make out the vague shapes of dark figures crouching in bushes… but by that time it is already too late.

The sound of crashing branches and trees had every one of the three worshippers of Hircine arming arrows to their bows in a flash.

"Sergeant, is that you?" Vahjira, the Khajiti huntress asked to the night in general. In response, the corpse of a wolf was thrown into the middle of the circle, blood leaking from its jaw. Vahjira sighed. Sergeant always had an unfortunate love of the dramatic. In the twilight she could make out the shape of a heavily armoured Nordic man, panting loudly.

"Yar."  
"Oh good. Honestly, the noise you make in that metal armour I'd think you were a guard. We're all so jittery about them finding out about this…"  
"They already 'ave. Trus' me on thith."  
"Really? Why di-"

"Thave it. No time."

The other hunters nodded.

"Right then, Sergeant, you're going to have to be the one to talk to Hircine, of course. None of us are Level 17 yet."  
"Wha'?"

"Um, I mean, none of us are powerful enough to speak to him ourself."  
"Oh. O' course."  
A crashing noise filled the clearing again. The hunters once again leapt to their weapons.

"Who goes there?" asked Hunt-Tail.

"Damnit, Private Metal-Foot, I told you we should have left the horses behind!" came the voice from the forest. The hunters steadied their weapons on the trees.  
"Hircine damn them!" whispered Boroneth. "They must have followed Sergeant here!"

Sergeant had got down on his knees in front of the statue, and was muttering to himself, speaking quickly in a strange tongue no-one could understand (well, as it was Sergeant's tongue it was a strange tongue that people could understand _less_ than they normally did).

The hunters' eyes narrowed.

A soldier stepped forward into the clearing, and fell down as three arrows pierced his body.

Sergeant let out an ear-piercingly high pitched scream.

And then Sheogorath's scrying glass broke down.

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"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" Sheogorath screamed. "Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! Not now!!! Please not now!!!" He fell to the floor, sobbing and pounding His fist on the marble floor of His palace. Haskill stood calmly beside his Lord, waiting for Sheogorath's tantrum to subside.

"Wanna, wanna, _new_ scrying glass!" Sheogorath cried.  
"Sire, if I may-"

"Waah!"  
"Sire!" shouted Haskill, and to his surprise Sheogorath looked up. "We need to do something about Hircine!"

"Hircine can wait. Pabodie! Come hither!"

Pabodie, the new castle wizard, looked up from the books he was studying, and replied. "Yes sire?" Sheogorath pointed at His scrying glass. "Fix it."  
Pabodie put on his glasses, sighing mentally. He had been taken from High Rock when he was seven, offered to Sheogorath by his Daedra-worshipping parents. The life of a mage in the Realm of Madness was a hard one. He knelt to examine the wide glass.

"I don't think I can, Sire."  
"You think I should hire a new wizard?" asked Sheogorath in a vaguely threatening voice.

"Nonono, Sire! But this has been severely damaged by a burst of magic. Whatever you were watching, it was powerful enough to cook this thing inside out," diagnosed Pabodie. And, he added mentally, after the whole "Dark Seducers Gone Wild" incident, I'm not even going to ask.

"What? That can't be- ah yes, the Elder Scroll. I imagine that Hircine tapped its power to… hmm, I have no idea why He'd do that…"  
Haskill put a hand on his Master's unholy shoulder. "Sire, perhaps it would be best if we discussed… the Orb plan."  
Sheogorath was silent, then nodded. He swept to His feet in usual dramatic fashion. "My royal subjects!" He barked. The various Dark Seducers and Golden Saints (the guards of The Shivering Isles) stood to attention, as did the other men and women in the hall. "Haskill and I need some alone time." The people shuffled out. Pabodie did not grumble, of course, because only heretics grumble, and he wasn't heretics, not in any way at all, nope, haven't even considered it, not even at the end of a bad day with Sheogorath barking orders at you to bugger off and make him a sky-boat. Nope, not even then.

"Right, Sire," said Haskill, when the assorted people who make things run had left the hall. He brought some paperwork into the world from the unknown place clerks get paperwork from. "I have studied protocol for situations like this one, and I have discovered that Daedra Lords may, if they feel that the situation requires it, choose a… well, a Chosen One, really."  
"Hmm, well, how interesting that isn't."  
"…Quite, Sire. Anyway, I have narrowed down several possible applicants for Chosenship, and put them down on this list."  
"You are such a nerd."  
"Just as you please, Sire. there is a battlemage wandering the land as we speak, practicing her skill in order to better serve You, my Liege. Perhaps she could be of some use?"  
"Nah, too clichéd."  
"Um, all right Sire, there is a young wizard who is consistently showing more skill than plausibly possible for his age, perhaps You could-"  
"Too Marty-Stu for me."  
"Sire, most Daedric Princes are not unduly concerned when They break a literary convention."  
"Yeah, well, am I a normal Supreme Overlord, Haskill?"

"…No, Sire."  
"So is there anyone else?"  
Haskill sighed. "Not really, Your Madnessness. There's a dark, mysterious assassin-"

"No."  
"A farmboy destined to inherit the throne of-"

"No! All of these are so _boring_! Aren't any of My worshippers just normal people?"  
"Um…" Haskill searched through his notes. "Not exactly, Sire."  
"Alright, lets just make do with what we have!"  
"Excellent Sire!" Haskill clapped his hands. "About that battlemage…"  
"Go have a chat with this Conrad Munro chap, then."  
"Um, don't you think-"

"No, I don't, Haskill. Not at all."

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Twenty metres below sea level, a puff of red smoke appeared in the smelliest, dampest, and slimiest cell in all Bravil. Indeed, the cell had been the all-round winner of the annual Cell-You-Wanted-That-Murdering-Psychopath-Locked-Away-In award three years running, and the guards now treated it with a sort of civic pride. Upstairs, the clock stopped. People froze in the streets. Haskill pinched his nose and surveyed the room.

"Quite disgusting," he muttered under his breath. A dark lump lay on a bed of straw in the corner of the room, snoring quietly.

"He's sleeping, Sire," he said, his words absorbed by the dark room.

"Well bloody wake him up then!" came the Voice in his head. Haskill tapped the sleeping form on its shoulder.

"Mr. Munro? Time to wake up now," said Haskill quietly beside Conrad's ear. Conrad rolled over and looked Haskill in the eye.

"That does it then," he groaned. "I really have gone insane."  
"Excellent!" Haskill clapped his hands together. "Now I think we can _really_ start to work together!"


	8. You Just Got Sheogorath'd

That's the trouble with breaking out of jail. It's so bloody hard. Prison cells were made so that people specifically _can't _get out. Trying to go against this design is like, well, like trying to chip away at a solid stone wall, with bars on the door a foot wide each, with a thin piece of metal you found on the floor. People who go to that much trouble to keep you beneath the ground of a castle really_ don't_ want you to escape. Not that I had too much choice, anyway. Sheogorath and Haskill were making sure of that.

I could feel the strange, well-dressed man standing behind me, in the same way that you can feel when anyone is looking very intently at you to make sure you were doing your job. His name was Haskill, he had said when he froze time, official representative of the Madgod Sheogorath Himself. Frankly, I could see why he got the job. You'd have to be mad to employ him.

Then there was Sheogorath himself, or Himself, as He preferred to be known as. Every couple of seconds He would whisper some piece of unhelpful advice in my ear. Right now He was discussing chamberpots.

"Quick, Conrad, when the guard walks past you need to hit him a good one over the ear with your chamberpot!"

"I don't _have_ a chamberpot! Just a smelly hole in the floor!"  
"What? That's hardly fair! How can you be expected to break out of jail without a chamberpot?"  
Haskill, who apparently had been listening in to the entire conversation, piped in, "I believe the purpose of this cell was to keep people _in_, Your Madnessness, not simply to see whether they could get out again as Yours do."  
"That's ridiculous! How could anyone expect you to learn if you just sit around in a cell for a few days! Sounds like the only thing that'll do is give you some nifty contacts in the criminal world."  
"Oh, it does," I agreed. "It sure does…"

* * *

Sharon and Jack Munro had both been strict, straight laced parents, dutiful chapelgoers, and general good productive members of society. Jack wore a tie to work, and smoked a pipe, Sharon wore plain clothes so not to inflame the passions of men, and both were well respected members of society. They had decided to follow a good and honest profession as commanded by their gods, and, lacking the education to become Priests or Knights, decided to settle on being proud members of the Thieves Guild, which at the very least moderated crime and helped beggars off the street in an orderly fashion. Sharon was a Shadowfoot, and Jack held the less high-ranking but still respectable rank of Cat-Burglar, although word on the street was that he was to be tipped for promotion. The church had taken a good look at this decision, and agreed with it fully.

One night, when I was fourteen years old, they had come in for the embarrassing "adult talk" which came in midway in every teenage boy's life.  
"You see, my son," Jack had said, almost kindly. "The life of a thief is hard, but rewarding. You are a young man, now, and the time has come for you to make up your mind as to what career you plan to follow as a productive member of society."

"Well… I've always thought it would be neat to be a mage…"  
Sharon Munro (always Sharon, or ma'am, never "mum", or even "mother") put her hands over her ears. "Darn you, young boy! Do you know nothing! Have we not bought you up to be a fine, strapping young boy? A mage? One who tinkers with things that should not be tinkered with, one who plays with fire and tries to become a God with his foolishness?" She was almost in tears. "Beat him, Jack!"  
The following beating had been just one of a million, another mark on the toilet – paper page of my childhood. Afterward, I apologised to Jack profusely, and then went to my room.

* * *

"Wow, great flashback there, Munro, but now I'd quite like you to get out of this cell, if you don't mind," said Sheogorath rudely. "Remember, we're on quite a heavy schedule. Finding out about Hircine and all that."  
"Yeah, I'm trying, but all that you've given me is this stupid piece of metal to chisel my way out, which could take all night, so if you want anything done in a hurry you'd better give me a hand."  
As if in answer, the door up the stairs to the castle creaked open quietly, and a large man walked in, dressed in the traditional armour of an Imperial Soldier. I groaned, and stuffed the makeshift chisel into my shirt, but too late.

"Hello, there! What _are_ you doing, my fine young rapscallion?"  
"Oh Gods… listen, copper, I can explain…"  
"Conrad? Conrad Munro, is that you?"  
The man moved the torch closer to his face. Recognition burst inside me.

"Larry! Filthy Larry! How're you doing?" I said, with sort of a despairing jollity. "Filthy" Larry had worked with me on a few occasions, back when the Kvatch detective agency had still been in business. Although this assumption was later proven incorrect, at the time I was under the impression that he was the only other surviving detective; he was a burly Nord capable of holding his own against several Daedra, and this ability had shown itself at the time of the attack.

"That's 'Private Larson' now, thanks very much, Conrad. And I think I'm doing a lot better than you at the moment. What'd you do?"  
"I tried to recover the stolen Elder Scroll. It's harder than it looks."  
"You bloody rebel you."  
"Shut up. I've spent this entire evening chiseling my way out of solid stone with nothing but a tiny strip of metal, the Prince of Madness and His personal assistant for company. I am not feeling happy."  
"Um… Prince of Madness?"  
"Yeah, you can't see him, but there's Haskill right there." Haskill gave a little wave from the back of the cell. The confused expression did not leave Larry's face.

"Uh… huh. How long have you been in here, Conrad?"  
"About three or four hours, why?"  
"Wow, didn't take you long to lose it, did it?"  
"What? Haskill _is_ right there!"  
"Well, if you think so, you might be right. I'm not really talking about that, I'm more referring to the fact that that piece of metal you're chiseling with is the key to the cell."  
"What? Shine the light on it for a sec," I asked. The torchlight spread over the rather dented piece of metal, and, yes, it did have a certain key-like property to it. Silently, I put it into the lock. The door sprang open with barely a squeak.

Haskill smiled slightly and spoke in a voice only I could hear; "I hate to say it, Mr. Munro, but I think you just got 'Sheogorath'd'."

"HAH!" said the voice in my head triumphantly. "Freakin' classic! Old 'key in the cell'! Gets 'em every time!"


	9. Chapter the Ninth: The Heated Hist

I tried to ignore Sheogorath's giggling as we left the dungeons

I tried to ignore Sheogorath's giggling in my head as we left the dungeons. Filthy Larry led us up the stairs, into a filthy, squalid room. It wasn't much to look at, the barrels and evidence chest in the corner, and the unpleasant-looking table in the middle were the only decorations one could make out by the dirty light provided by the oil lamp in the middle of the table.

"I doubt that anyone will be particularly concerned about you, Conrad," he assured me as we sat down at the jailor's table. "I was meant to be guarding your cell anywho, so there won't be any guards waltzing around down here for a while yet."  
"How can you be so sure?" I asked, picking up a lump of cold smoked bacon from a long-abandoned plate. It had been quite a while since dinner, and bacon had always done something amazing to me when I ate it. "Soldiers come and go all the time."  
"Heh, not now they don't. Your old chum Sergeant made sure of that. Breaking out of Castle Bruma, killing three guards, arming himself, running off, and grabbing the Elder Scroll from the evidence chest while he was at it. Add that to the problems we've been having with the Elven Alliance and, we-ll, it's a bit of an embarrassment to the Count."

My heart rose. "So I'm innocent now?" I asked optimistically, but the look on Filth's face answered the question for me. "I'm not, am I?" I stated glumly.  
"Conrad, Conrad, Conrad, as soon as the guards suspected you they raided your house."

"Oh."

"They checked places likely to hold hidden magic items."  
"Shit."  
"Yes, very, very shit, Conrad. 37 bottles they found, hidden in behind the loose brick in the fireplace."

I was rummaging through the evidence chest, collecting my old clothes, and other junk. "Only the thirty-seven?" I asked as I slipped my trenchcoat over my shoulders.  
"Yes. They didn't find the hollowed-out diary, fortunately for you."

I jammed my fedora onto my head snugly. "A small saving, then. 49 bottles worth."  
"Add to that the fact that you've just broken out of jail, and possibly assaulted a choking guard-"

"That was the goddamn Heinrich Maneuver! I was saving him!"  
"Whatever it was, you're gonna be eating meals with wooden spoons for a while yet. Here, have a beer. It might help."

I thought about my situation. But therein lied the problem. _I _wasn't in full control of my brain at the moment, was I?

"Freeze time!" I shouted, clapping my hands. Filthy Larry's inquisitive face faded into black, the bottle in his hand froze in mid-air. And, suddenly, Haskill was sitting beside me again, a glass of Tamika Vintage 399 red in his hand.

"You know, technically we aren't _freezing_ time," was his opening line. "That's just ridiculous, if you froze time then the rays of visible light wouldn't be able to move, and you wouldn't be able to see anything. And of course, you wouldn't be able to hear, smell, or talk. Much easier simply to slow time down an incredible amount."

"Wow, thanks so much Haskill, I can't tell you how much more fulfilling life is now I can make comments involving the nature of time with the right vocabulary. What are you, a physicist all of a sudden?"  
Haskill smiled, and sipped his wine. "Glad to have been of assistance."  
"So what do you want me to do now?"

"I truly have no idea. Ask Sheogorath."  
"What?"  
"He's still in your head. He's just being quiet now because your brain cells want to smack Him one for the 'key' incident."  
I looked up at the roof of the dungeon. "Are you there, Sheogorath? It's me, Conrad."  
"Of course I'm here!" came the loud , mental reply. "I'm always here for you, Conrad!"  
"Great." So reassuring. "What's our next move?"  
"That's easy, Conrad. Get out of that Castle and go stop Hircine!"

"Sheogorath, I'm a detective, not some awesome juggernaut warrior. I can't go around pissing off Gods."  
"You're pissing one off right now!" He screamed. "Get with it! Or I'll open a whole can of smite-arse upon you!"  
"… Yes my Lord."  
"Good. And by the way, Conrad, there's a bunch of soldiers heading down the stairs right now, they're approximately… fourteen seconds from running through that door. Thought you'd ought to know."  
And with that, the world coloured itself in.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Private Larry Larson shook his head. "Wow, Conrad, that was pretty weird. One second you were sitting there in front of me, and now you're suddenly standing and… barricading the door with the table. Um, why are you barricading the door with the table?"

I turned to him, forced myself to calm down. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Or was that in through the mouth, out through the nose? I could never remember.

"Larry, we used to work together. We were good friends, and both of us were the only detectives to make it out of Kvatch alive. Now let me ask you, and please, hurry with this decision, do you want to help me get out of here?"  
"What? Conrad, there's no rush, the guards won't be here for at least another hour, I was just concerned that you spilt your beer–"

_BANG_!! "Open up! Open _up_, Private Larson! We learnt something about the detective's cell, it's built right on top of a shrine to Sheog–" I spoke loudly over him. –"Larry, quick, I need your help. I got the brains, but I need the brawn to back it up. It's your choice."  
"Well, in that case–"

I realised suddenly that simple loyalty wasn't going to cut it. The banging of shields and shoulders against the door were getting more furious, there wasn't much time before they got through. I pulled out my metaphorical ace my sleeve.

"You might also remember that you've just let a hardened criminal out of jail, escorted him upstairs for a nice meal of bacon and beer, and, in my opinion, just barricaded the door so a squad of innocent soldiers couldn't get in."  
"You aren't a hardened criminal! And you didn't drink the beer! You spilt it!"

"When you're drunk there isn't much of a difference, Filth." I nodded at the chains sitting in a lump on the barrels. "Trust me, I can have those on in a few seconds, and then you'll have to explain how I barricaded the door with my arms attached to the chair."  
"The guards will believe me."  
"Want to bet?"  
Larry stood still for a few seconds. Then his face broke in half into a smile. "Alright, Munro, for old times sake I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. What's your plan? And it had better be good."  
"Isn't it always, Larry?" I asked rhetorically as I checked the contents of the barrels. Piles of bacon fat, the stuff they use to thicken the stew they feed prisoners, the stuff not even a _guard_ could eat, sat like limp bodily organs in the bottom of the round tub. I smiled to myself.  
"Remember the whole cat up the tree business with Quentinius Quigley?" Larry asked nervously.  
"Oh… yeah. But cutting the tree down seemed quite a reasonable solution at the time, Larry."  
"Well, he got his cat back, sure, I just hope he didn't like his privy much, because the tree landed–"

"Right, right, I get it."  
"It was quite an interesting explo–"

"Alright, but that was a one-off bad plan! Now would you please help me with this very good plan and stop wasting time? Get the lid off this barrel! Now! And coat the room with what's inside!"  
"What are you doing?"  
"I'm gonna go find a tinderbox. And then we're going to get into some _serious_ shit, private."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The blaze started slow, but when fat starts burning, it takes rather a lot to make it stop. Larry turned tortured eyes towards me.

"Well freakin' done, Munro, but now _we're_ the ones stuck in a dungeon burning from the inside out."  
I laughed, the smoke was getting to my head, I think. "Elementary, my dear Larson. We move the table, and the soldiers open the door for us. Not too much effort from either of us."  
We took a leg each, the ones I had levered against the door, and flipped the table onto its back with a crash.

The soldiers rushed in, weapons drawn. Some of them began to cough.

"Azura!" Captain Samuel swore. "I can'' see a thing! Where'd all the smoke come from?"  
"Fire!" screamed Larry theatrically. "Everyone out!"  
Pandemonium erupted in the jailor's office, which is never a good thing to erupt amongst a group of heavily armed men standing in an extremely small space. Guards pushed and shoved and pulled at one another in their attempts to get out. The fire burned, spitting, spreading, the table erupted into dark red, smoky flames. I was glad I had moved it far enough away from the door to avoid blocking my own exit. Bacon fat was proving its worth once again. Sure was smoky though, I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. Or, for that matter, anyone else's hand.

"This way, everyone!" shouted a voice from my left. "The door's over here!"  
There was the noise of a squad of heavily armoured men shifting themselves rapidly to the left. Somewhere in the flames, I heard Larry scream. But there was no time for that, no time for anything, anything except getting to that door, which was suddenly so far away…  
"Oh, do please stop, Mister Munro. There's always time, if you're prepared to ask for it."

The colour faded out of the world again. Haskill cleared a patch for himself through the smog.

"What have you been doing, Mister Munro?" he asked wearily.

I was puzzled. "Exactly what you told me, Haskill. I'm getting out of the cell alive."  
"Mister Munro, there is a shrine to Sheogorath build underneath the dungeons of this castle – in here Sheogorath's powers are at their greatest. In here, He can freeze time, send you aid, smite infidels… so why did you find it necessary to burn the entire building?"  
"What? It isn't burnt yet! That's solid stone up there, it doesn't burn!" I replied angrily. In my annoyance I waved my hand into the unusually red flames coming from the table. "Ouch!"

"Yes, the fire still burns, Munro. Just very, very slowly," said Haskill. "Look, Mister Munro, allow me to let you in on… a secret." He beckoned me closer. "Sheogorath is scared, Mister Munro. The reason your escort, or most of your escort, Private Larson excluded, has gone missing, is because they left in hot pursuit of the good Mister Batchelor shortly after his escape. We watched them on our scrying glass, they ran out into the Great Forest, into the clearing devoted to Hircine, Daedric Lord of the Hunt, and… disappeared. We have no idea what happened to them, but whatever Sergeant did with that Elder Scroll, it was powerful enough to knock Sheogorath's scrying glass out of line. That's the first time that any Daedra Lord has had His (or Her) powers bested by Another. Hircine has the potential to become one of the most powerful Gods in the universe. And what do you think will happen to your little mundane realm then, Mister Munro?"  
"Is this really the best time you could tell me all this?"  
"Yes it is!" and suddenly Haskill was angry. "When you leave here, it is going to be incredibly hard to get a hold of you without a direct magical link! Daedric telecommunications are pathetic, trust me, I know. Whether or not we can contact you, you _need_ to find that Elder Scroll, and, at least, discover what happened to your escort." Haskill seemed to consider this. "Although that shouldn't be too hard to deduce, Hircine's always been slightly unoriginal when it comes to global dominations. 'Werewolf or bust' tends to be His motto."  
I nodded. I hadn't quite realised how important this mission was, for everyone. "Anything else I should know?"  
"Oh, Private Larson just got his foot impaled by a falling halberd, he may require some assistance in removing it. Believe me, he will be very useful in times to come."  
"How in Oblivion am I supposed to carry someone with a hole in their foot around Cyrodil with me?"  
Haskill laughed. "Haven't you heard of a potion of Cure Serious Wounds?"  
"Well, yeah, but…"  
"I know, it seems very Deus ex Machina, but, then again, when the proverbial feces hit the fan, who's going to blame you?"  
"Okay then."  
"By the way… that table is made from a special type of wood, as rare as it is illegal, which has a rather… special sort of sap. Have you heard of the Hist? The sap within has a remarkably low detonation point, only very small amounts of energy is required to activate it. Better start running."  
The world faded back into focus. Suddenly, I felt very, very alone. But I no longer cared about staying anonymous through the commotion anymore. "Run!" I screamed over the commotion. "Run, damnit, if that table heats up anymore it's gonna blow!"  
There was little reply. The guards were filing out now, only one or two remained aside from me and Larry (And even if they heard me, I imagine it would have sounded vaguely ridiculous. tables don't blow up, as a general rule). But it was so hard to see! Where was he? A small lump in the fire turned out to be the chains from the barrels, now so hot as to be untouchable. My vision began to blur, and I hit the floor, coughing, spluttering.

And it was then that God talked to me.

"Wake up, damn you!" Sheogorath screamed shrilly. "I've come too far to be let down by your slackness! Oh for Oblivion's sake…"

In the smoke and fire it was difficult to tell, but it almost looked as though a blue bolt had fell from the sky, and hit me in the back. I got up again, coughing out phlegm onto the floor.

"Right, that's one fire resistance, and one water breathing! Now grab the monkey and GO!"  
With the fire no longer burning my skin, and the smoke no longer burning my lungs, I was able to finally have a bit more of a poke around, nearly tripping over Larry when I finally found him.

"C'mon, up you get," I urged him gently, putting an arm underneath his shoulder, and helping him to his feet. Like some ridiculous participant in a three-legged race we hobbled to the exit, and, without much undue drama, exited.

Outside, the townsfolk hid in their cellars and houses, hiding for fear of being burned or simply smashed by debris of the exploding castle (the townsfolk mostly knew where a lot of the furniture in the castle came from, it was a kind of tree that started with an 'H' and ended with an 'Ist'), hiding for fear of the criminals they knew to be out on their streets. This, of course, provided a rather nifty opportunity for Larry and I to get out of the city without undue attack by guards and citizens. As we cracked the gate to the stable outside Bravil I turned to Larry with my question.

"Do you think I might of… overdone it a bit?"  
"Well… I think a fire was probably the best way to handle the –"

_**BOOM!!**_ With a noise like a dragon being pissed off by an over-inquisitive hobbit the castle detonated, the entire castle rising several feet in the air and then splitting into pieces as it hit the ground. Turrets fell over, a guard tower crushed several houses, the Count's own personal bedroom flew halfway across the city before embedding itself in the chapel roof, much to the Count's personal surprise, as he was having a peaceful liedown before his bath at the time. People screamed, running through the streets, looting shops as they went. The city guard was trampled, powerless to stop the terror in the streets. Larry went white.

"Remind me never to try and lock you up again. Ever," he said softly. A smouldering leg from a table landed beside him. He took a long, slow look at it, and then ran as fast as he could, up the road toward the Imperial city.


End file.
